Chapter 8
EIGHT
Aria
"You need to go to him," Kaelen’s voice was a low rumble, barely audible over the chiming of the glass leaves in the stagnant breeze.
He stood beside me, his hand hovering near the small of my back but not touching. The golden fire in his eyes was banked, dim and weary, but the bond between us was wide open. Through it, I felt his concern, but more overpowering was the jagged, screaming static coming from the connection to Flynn.
It wasn't a sound; it was a sensation, like steel wool being scrubbed against the inside of my skull. The only emotion it brought to mind was shame. Thick, oily, suffocating shame that tasted of old blood and snow.
"He's blocking us out," Elias murmured, examining a bloom that looked like an orchid weeping black ichor. "He is trying to sever the limb to save the body. He thinks his memories are poisoning the bond."
"He thinks he's a monster," Thane corrected, his gaze fixed on the dark path of crushed vegetation Flynn had left in his wake.
"We need a minute," I said, the words heavy on my tongue. My jaw felt stiff, the Silvering creeping up my neck like a tightening collar. "Just... give us a minute."
Kaelen nodded, turning his back to the path to stand guard. "We will secure the perimeter. Do not wander far, Aria. The garden is beautiful, but it smells of death and decay."
I moved past them, following the trail of broken glass leaves and trampled silver vines. My gait was uneven, my left leg moving with a heaviness that sent tremors of impact up my spine with every step. I felt less like a woman and more like a golem made of spare parts and stubbornness.
The garden was a labyrinth of impossible botany. Trees with trunks of twisted bronze grew out of marble ruins, their roots clutching stones like prey. The air was thick with a perfume that was too sweet, cloying like rotting fruit. It made my head swim, masking the usual scents of the underground.
I found Flynn in a clearing dominated by a massive, weeping willow made entirely of translucent crystal. The long, delicate branches swayed, chiming softly, creating a curtain of sound.
He was destroying it.
Not with daggers or weapons of any kind.
He was using his bare hands.
Flynn punched the trunk of the crystal tree, his knuckles splitting, blood smearing against the pristine surface. He didn't seem to feel it. He struck again, and again, a rhythmic, self-destructive cadence.
"Flynn," I said.
He froze, his fist drawn back for another blow. He didn't turn. His shoulders were hunched, the muscles of his back bunching under the leather armor, the fur-lined cloak having been lost at some point in all the fighting.
"Go away, Aria," he rasped. His voice sounded wrecked, as if he’d been screaming for hours.
"No." I stepped closer, my boots crunching on shards of crystal.
"I said go away!" He spun around, and the look on his face stopped me cold.
His amber eyes were blown wide, the dark pupils swallowing the warmth that was normally there. His lips were pulled back in a snarl that wasn't human. But it was the scent coming off him that hit me hardest. It wasn't aggression. It was revulsion. He smelled like sour sweat and terror.
"You saw it," he spat, gesturing wildly with a bloody hand. "You saw what she made me do. What I did."
"I saw a memory," I said, forcing my heavy legs to carry me forward. "I saw a weapon being tested."
"I enjoyed it!" The confession tore out of him, a jagged thing.
He slammed his hand against the crystal trunk again, cracking it.
"That’s the part she didn't have to show you, because I know you felt it through the bond.
The rush. The taste of it. I am not a prince, Aria.
I am a rabid dog that learned to walk on two legs. "
He backed away from me as I advanced, stumbling over a root.
"You shouldn't be near me," he whispered, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "The bond, I’m polluting it. I’m putting that blood on you. On the others. I can feel it leaking into your heads."
"So you're going to what?" I asked, my voice hard. "Cut yourself off? Starve the pack because you had a bad dream?"
"It’s not a dream! It’s what I am!" He looked at me, pleading. "Aria, look at yourself. You’re turning to stone or metal or whatever because of us. Because of me. I’m killing you, and the worst part is, I want to be closer. I want to consume you. That is all I know how to do."
He was vibrating with it, the energy under his skin crackling like a storm. He was spiraling down a hole so deep I wasn't sure he could see the light anymore. Words wouldn't fix this. Logic wouldn't fix this. He was trapped in the sensory overload of his own history.
I needed to be louder than the memory.
I lunged.
I moved with a speed that surprised even me, the divine strength in my altering muscles propelling me forward. I slammed into his chest, driving him back against the crystal tree.
The impact knocked the wind out of him. The branches above us chimed wildly, a chorus of breaking glass.
"Aria—"
I didn't let him speak. I grabbed the front of his armor and yanked him down, smashing my lips against his.
It wasn't a sweet kiss. It was a collision of teeth and desperation. I kissed him with all the frustration, all the fear, and all the fierce, unyielding possession that had been building in my chest since we left the stairs.
He froze for a split second, his hands hovering in the air as if afraid to touch me.
I bit his lower lip, hard enough to taste copper.
I am here, I shouted down the bond, projecting the thought with the force of a hammer strike. Not the snow. Not the village. Here. Be here with me.
A low growl started in his chest, a vibration I felt against my breasts. His restraint shattered.
His hands crashed onto my hips, gripping me with bruising force. He spun us, pinning me against the crystal trunk. The uneven surface dug into my back, but I barely felt it through the haze of need that washed over me.
What I felt was him. The searing heat of his skin, the frantic, rabbit-fast beat of his heart, the hard ridge of his arousal pressing against my stomach.
"You're crazy," he groaned against my mouth, his hands sliding up to tangle in my hair, yanking my head back to bare my throat. "You are out of your mind."
"Shut up," I panted, my hands fumbling with the belt of his breeches. "Prove it. Prove you're a monster. Devour me, Flynn."
The challenge hung in the air, tasting of ozone and nectar.
His eyes flashed, the amber burning away the black, but this time it was with the heat of lust instead of the cold desperation that had been there before. "Careful what you wish for, Pup."
My own blood heated. He grabbed my breast, fingers nimbly finding my nipple and teasing it until it was a taught peak and making me pant with need.
We had barely had time to breathe since the binding, let alone anything else, and his touches brought the memory of our session in the cavern back to the surface, making me ache for him.
I finally succeeded in freeing him and stroked his cock, making him groan as I pumped up and down.
Flynn couldn't wait any longer. He shoved my breeches down, his hands rough and impatient. There was no more foreplay, no gentle courting. We didn't have time for that, not between running from a goddess and dying by degrees. We needed to feel life.
He lifted me, his strength effortless, and I wrapped my good leg around his waist the best I could, given that it was tangled with fabric. The cold, hard surface of the crystal tree was against my back, and the boiling heat of the Wolf was against my front.
He thrust into me.
I cried out; the sound lost in the chiming of the glass leaves. It was sharp, deep, and overwhelmingly real. The friction was a grounding wire, channeling the chaotic energy of the garden, the bond, and the fear into a single, white-hot point of contact.
"Look at me," he commanded, his voice a rough bark.
I opened my eyes, not even realizing that I'd closed them. He was staring at me with an intensity that bordered on madness. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
"Do you feel that?" he rasped, driving into me again, hitting a spot that made my vision blur. "Is that a monster? Is that a weapon?"
"It's you," I gasped, my fingernails digging into his shoulders. "It's just you."
"It's us," he corrected.
He set a punishing rhythm, fast and hard, trying to outrun his own thoughts. I met him thrust for thrust, my body meeting his wiry strength. The gray patches of my skin felt less numb now, the impact of our bodies sending shockwaves through the rigid lattice of my nerves, waking them up.
The bond flared. Kaelen’s fire licked at the edges of my mind, not jealous this time, but protective, a ring of fire keeping the world at bay.
Thane’s gravity anchored us, keeping us from spinning off the earth.
Elias’s clarity sharpened every sensation, the slide of skin, the catch of breath, the smell of crushed black orchids beneath our feet.
But Flynn? Flynn was the storm’s center.
Every time he pushed inside me, he pushed the shame back. He replaced the memory of red snow with the reality of now. Of me. Of the way I arched into him, the way I said his name like a prayer.
"Aria," he choked out, burying his face in the crook of my neck. He bit down on the sensitive cord of muscle, his teeth scraping, claiming.
"I'm here," I promised, my hands roaming over his back, feeling the scars, the tension. "I've got you. I'm not letting go."
He shuddered, his rhythm stuttering, breaking. The walls he had built, the self-loathing he had wrapped around himself like armor, cracked.
"Gods," he sobbed, a dry, harsh sound. "I can't... it's too much."
"Give it to me," I ordered, pushing my magic into the bond, widening the channel. "Give me the noise, Flynn."
He did.
He poured himself into me, body and soul. The climax hit him like a tidal wave crashing against the shore, a violent release of tension that racked his entire frame. He groaned, a long, guttural sound of surrender, pulsing inside me, filling the void, chasing away the cold of the Silvering.
For just a moment I thought he was going to leave me wanting, but then he growled low in his throat and began to move again, his hips snapping against my own and his fingers deftly sliding between us until I followed him over the edge a second later.
My world narrowed down to the smell of musk and the feeling of being completely, utterly full.
The pleasure was a bright, sharp knife cutting away the static, leaving only clarity as I pulsed around him.
We stayed like that for a long time; him holding me against the tree and me wrapped around him, our breathing harsh and ragged in the quiet garden. The glass leaves chimed softly, a gentle lullaby after the storm.
Flynn rested his forehead against mine. His eyes were closed, his eyelashes damp. The manic energy was gone. The smell of fear had faded, replaced by the scent of sex and satisfaction.
"You are..." He trailed off, shaking his head. He opened his eyes. They were clear. The shadows were gone. "You are dangerous, Aria Pandoros."
"I learned from the best," I whispered, brushing a thumb over his swollen lip.
He let out a huff of laughter, weak but genuine. He pulled out before slowly lowering me until my boots touched the ground, though he kept his arms around me, supporting my weight as my stiff legs protested.
"The static," he murmured, looking at me with awe. "It's gone. My head is quiet."
"Good," I said, adjusting my clothes, though my hands were shaking. "Because we have a job to do. And I need you, Flynn. Not the ghost."
He kissed me again, softly this time, lingering. A thank you. A promise.
"You have me," he swore. "You have all of me."
"Then let's go," I said, taking his hand. "The others are waiting."